The season

Budburst arrived a little behind the long-term average in mid-September, after a dry summer and autumn that gave us just 50mm across six months. A wet July and a cold November followed, and some early-November days felt closer to winter than spring. Flowering was pushed back to late November and drawn out by the variable conditions, and fruit set suffered for it. Budburst, flowering and set all tracked behind the long-term average.

The rain stopped at the end of November, and by mid-December the heat had arrived. After New Year it turned furnace-like. January days ran 3.5°C above average, with a severe late-January spell that pushed past 45°C and cost us some fruit to water stress. Véraison began in mid-to-late January, drawn out and overlapping with the heat. Between the cold, wet flowering and the heat at véraison, bunches came in loose and the berries very small.

Harvest opened on 18 February with Viognier, nearly two weeks later than 2025, then moved slowly through the whites and rosé. In early and mid-March, tropical moisture off the Western Australian coast soaked the Barossa and raised real fears of disease pressure. On the Western Ridge we kept it to a minimum. Red harvest ran from 10 March and was largely done at Greenock by 14 April, with the last parcel pressed on 4 May. Eleven weeks from start to finish, and for those in the thick of it, a harvest that felt like it would never end.

2026 by the numbers

Harvest · 18 February – 4 May · 11 weeks

Highlights of vintage

The post-harvest period has been a chance to reflect. 2026 is defined by contrast, from the wet winter and late spring through to the fierce, hot, dry summer of January and February. In many ways it mirrors the contrasting weather patterns that have shaped these lands over thousands of years.

The wines, Shiraz especially, carry that intensity in both colour and tannin, a product of the small berries. I have rarely seen parcels verging on deep midnight colour, with tannins that almost appear Bordeaux-like in structure.

Ben Perkins

Chief Winemaker